How Much Does Seeing A Functional Medicine Doctor Cost?
In this blog post, we will take a deep dive into costs associated with seeing a functional medicine doctor including services, labs, supplements and medications.
Seeing a functional medicine doctor can be a very different experience than what you would typically expect from a doctor. Functional medicine doctors take the time to get to know you, understand your health concerns in detail, and provide solutions that encompass lifestyle, nutrition, supplements, and medications, if needed. Longer appointments are key in being able to make sure you are heard without interruption. Unfortunately, health insurance has largely dictated how long doctors can spend with their patients. This has left many patients dissatisfied with the rushed, superficial approaches they often encounter in healthcare.
Many doctors–especially those practicing functional, integrative, or naturopathic medicine–value the time they spend with their patients and don’t want insurance companies inserting themselves into the relationship. For this reason, they charge their fees directly to the patient. In most cases, severing their ties with insurance companies allows functional medicine physicians to charge less yet spend more time with their patients–a win-win.
What is involved in physician pricing?
Most holistic doctors charge by the hour for their time. The reason for this is because an initial consultation is typically an hour, and patients then understand the up-front cost of that entire appointment. With traditional and insurance based billing, doctors get paid based on the billing codes and their associated difficulty levels. This leads to a complete lack of transparency and forces doctors to just check various service boxes so they can bill for them. Depending on where the practice is located, functional medicine doctors’ charges can be higher or lower (national average is around $500), since doctors also have to account for the cost of their employees and office space, which can drive up the price.
Because Vytal Health doctors are entirely virtual (on-line), we are able to keep our prices lower than most other clinics. Keep in mind that your out-of-pocket expenses can potentially be reimbursed by your insurance plan as an “Out of Network” benefit. Most practices, including Vytal Health, will assist you with this. Additionally, high deductible health plans often have HSA (Health Spending Accounts) or FSA (Flexible Spending Accounts) that can be used to pay for doctor visits and many other aspects of your functional medicine care.
Figuring out your budget
There are a few other things to consider when setting your budget for functional medicine care.
Payment Plan
At Vytal Health, we offer payment plans for our services to help with cost transparency and budgeting for our patients. Financial health is important too, and we want to ensure that we are patients are fully prepared to engage in our services. You can find our new patient pricing below:
Initial Care: $200/month for 6 months
- 60 minute initial consultation
- 60 minute follow up
- 30 minute follow up
- 30 minute follow up
Ongoing Care: $125/month
- 3 hours per year (any combination of 60 minute or 30 minute appointments)
These payment plans include perks like 20% off supplements and at home lab testing kits, private messaging with your doctor, and a care coordinator on your team to help you navigate being a functional medicine patient. Payment plans are HSA/FSA eligible.
Lab testing
At Vytal Health, we see patients across the country with varying insurance plans and lab accessibility. We have an option for everyone and our care coordinator team are experts at helping you find the best route. Let’s go over a few of the most common lab types below:
- Blood work with insurance- Our doctors order blood work and it is generally covered by insurance. You can work with your local hospital system or you can work with Labcorp or Quest, our preferred lab partners. Many of our patients prefer to skip using their insurance for blood work. Since insurance varies so much on their coverage and you often don’t get the bill until months later, it can be hard to estimate pricing.
- Blood work without insurance– We work with our lab partners to offer very low cost pricing on blood work. We send you a quote for the labs, you purchase and have your blood drawn at your local Labcorp location. **BONUS- many patients are paying for out of pocket blood work and submitting to their insurance after and getting reimbursed on top of the initial low cost. We’ve found this is the lowest cost lab option for a majority of patients. Win win!
- At home lab testing kits– Anything that can’t be done via blood work will be ordered as an at home lab testing kit. These kits are shipped directly to your home, you complete it at home and mail it back. These are an out of pocket expense (meaning insurance generally does not cover them) and they range in price depending on the sample and how comprehensive the tests are. You can expect to pay anywhere from $150 for a salivary hormone test to $450 for a comprehensive gut health test. Remember that lab tests are also covered by HSA or FSA plans.
Supplements
Both functional medicine doctors and patients alike often choose to start with natural approaches to their treatment when possible, and this often involves supplements. The quality of supplements varies widely, and so does the cost. We often like to say, “the most expensive supplement is the one that doesn’t work.” At Vytal Health, we’ve heard patients describe having spent hundreds of dollars on supplements, only to abandon them one by one without success. Functional medicine doctors will typically recommend physician-grade supplements, which can be a little more pricey, but are higher quality and therefore get better results. Physician-grade supplements purchased at Vytal Health will typically cost $30-$200 per month. We make it easier to save on cost by applying discounts with our plans and connecting you with our supplement dispensary, Fullscript. You can buy your supplements from any reputable dispensary or local health food store.
Medications
Most medications prescribed by functional medicine doctors are covered by your insurance. Certain compounded (custom-made) medications, like bioidentical hormones or low dose naltrexone, are an out-of-pocket expense, but are typically not nearly as expensive as traditional pharmaceuticals (typically $45-60 per month). Your functional medicine doctor will discuss all of your options and certainly help steer you in the right direction if cost is an important consideration for you.
Some examples of costs
While each patient’s needs are very different, it might be helpful to get an idea of what functional medicine lab tests generally cost based on health conditions.
Example 1: Menopause and adrenal fatigue
- Testing for Suzanne was about $725.
- Supplements were about $110/mo.
- Medications (Armour thyroid and bio-identical hormones) ended up costing her around $75/mo at her local compounding pharmacy.
Because of her Vytal Health perks, Suzanne was able to save more than $400 on labs and $20/mo on supplements, making her total for all of her labs just over $300 and monthly supplement total around $90/mo.
Example 2: Depression and anxiety
- Testing for Rebecca was about $440.
- Supplements were about $130/mo.
- Rebecca did not need any medications and was able to discontinue her antidepressant.
Because of her Vytal Health perks, Rebecca was able to save $280 on labs and $25/mo on supplements, making her total for all of her labs $160 and her monthly supplement total $95/mo.
Example 3: Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and migraines
- Testing for Kathleen was about $850.
- Supplements were about $145/mo.
- Medication cost was a $10 copay at her local pharmacy.
Because of her Vytal Health perks, Rebecca was able to save $330 on labs and $30/mo on her supplements, making her total for all of her labs $520 and her monthly supplement total $115/mo.
Functional vs. traditional medicine pricing
Even though these lab tests seem quite expensive, if you have a high deductible health plan and haven’t met your annual deductible, you’ll likely pay much higher prices for similar testing in a traditional clinic’s lab, and most of the time the comprehensiveness of these types of tests aren’t available in that setting. Additionally, up-front pricing is very difficult to get in the traditional clinic or health care system, and often you don’t know the “sticker price” until the bill comes, sometimes with very unpleasant “sticker shock”! Your functional medicine doctor should help you sort through your lab testing needs and offer you options that suit your budget, or help you prioritize the tests so that you can get the most important ones done first.
How to decide what’s best for you
If the cost of functional medicine care seems overwhelming for you, consider looking at your spending on medical care over the last year. Ask yourself whether the care you received was helpful, or if you felt supported and cared for. Was the treatment effective? Add in the cost of supplements and over-the-counter medications you may have purchased on your own, or at the suggestion of a friend or family member. When you look closely at what you are typically spending on health care, it might surprise you to find out that functional medicine care is more within reach than you thought.